.

THE OVERWHELMING ODDS.
At half-past ten that same evening, Blakeney, still clad in a workman's tattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streets unheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche.
The porte-cochere of the house where Armand lodged had been left on the latch; not a soul was in sight.

Peering cautiously round, he slipped into the house.

On the ledge of the window, immediately on his left when he entered, a candle was left burning, and beside it there was a scrap of paper with the initials S.P.roughly traced in pencil.

No one challenged him as he noiselessly glided past it, and up the narrow stairs that led to the upper floor.